Growing up, I heard a lot of anecdotal exclamations about cars becoming smaller in every way imaginable with each downsizing. But did they really?
As this issue has been bugging me for a while now, I had to investigate. For this particular examination, I have focused strictly on Ford-built products to better illustrate my findings. Perhaps another occasion could see this expanded to various other manufacturers.
Let’s start in the past and work our way forward.
The first entry into our comparison will be the mid-sized 1968 Ford Fairlane. This is the first year for this generation, a departure from the Dragnet-era predecessor.
We will compare the Fairlane to the 1969 Ford Galaxie (okay, this is a Custom; is there really any tangible difference?). As luck would have it, 1969 was the first year of an updated generation of full-sized Ford. It’s also safe to say the 1969 Fairlane had dimensions little changed from 1968.
For giggles, and to illustrate what was different when flipping the extra coin for a Mercury, we will also look at the 1969 Mercury Marquis.
Unless stated otherwise, all dimensions are in inches.
When looking at these dimensions, there is a clear distinction in most cases between the Fairlane and Galaxie. This should come as no surprise. What does come as a surprise is nearly identical front and rear headroom, as well as the lesser amount of legroom, in the Galaxie.
Transitioning our comparison to the Galaxie and Marquis, we see the Marquis has less headroom in both the front and rear. We also see a smaller fuel tank which is intriguing as I pulled information for a 240 six-cylinder Ford and a 429 V8 Mercury.
The truest area of intrigue is comparing the Fairlane and the Marquis. Going bigger really didn’t net a bigger catch in several instances, such as front legroom.
In an effort to keep this comparison as equitable as possible, all three of these dimensions come from those of the four-door sedans.
As the 1970s wore on, and moving into the 1980s, it became apparent that downsizing was the name of the game. So while the names have changed in this next round, the function is still the same.
Here we have the 1983 Ford LTD. This is the Fox-bodied LTD that originated in the 1978 Ford Fairmont and would live until 1993 with the Ford Mustang.
In the other corner, we also have the 1983 Ford LTD Crown Victoria, the Panther based full-sizer that saw duty until 2011.
The Mercury Grand Marquis is not being included here as, apart from overall length, all dimensions are identical to those of the Ford. The exclusivity of a Mercury was quickly eroding.
For comparison and contrast, the 1986 Ford Taurus has also been thrust into the crosshairs of scrutiny. The Taurus had a huge influence on the direction the American automobile would take, as its execution was quite outside the traditional Detroit mindset. This comparison would be incomplete without the Taurus.
There is distinction aplenty between the LTD and the Crown Victoria. Except for headroom, there is a distinct difference between the two and a buyer got the size they paid for. At 22.4 cubic feet, the Crown Vic has the best trunk room of anything we will be examining. Its interior room is also the best we will see, beating out the cabin volume of the 1969 Mercury Marquis. All this from the “downsized” Panther, a car that keeps touting its perpetually underestimated engineering prowess over thirty years later.
The Panther does start to pale in some regards in comparison to the original 1986 Taurus. The original Taurus was a very good car and the nameplate is still around. Let’s fast-forward thirty-two years.
For the 2015 model year, Ford has the Fusion as its mid-sized model. For this comparison, dimensions for the SE trim level are being used as the hybrid does vary considerably in some dimensions.
After a brief hiatus several years ago, the Taurus name has returned and is being slapped on what is now the biggest Ford available. With automotive progression getting faster by the year, let’s see how these two stack up:
So what does stepping up to the 2015 Taurus get you over the Fusion? A longer wheelbase and a bigger trunk plus a cabin that is smaller in nearly every other measurement. Perhaps this is why Ford has this information buried so deep in their website.
To its credit, the 2015 Taurus is bigger in every regard that was the original 1986 model.
While I have limited this examination to Ford products, would such an examination of other manufacturers reveal similar information? And, from a truly subjective feel, do the raw numbers reflect how this room is being apportioned?
Very nice analysis. I would’ve thought the current Taurus was much larger in exterior dimensions, more closely matching the older Fords. I guess it’s height goes a long way in making it visually larger.
Ford marketing shysters were misleading in saying that the Fox LTD was “totally redesigned.” Only in the sense that it’s different from the Panther LTD (which the Fox-body predated) could this be true. It was merely a restyled & dressed-up Fairmont; not even the wheelbase was longer, & also could be had with a CAFE-friendly Pinto engine.
I think they can get away with saying it’s redesigned in the sense of using design as a synonym for styling, as is often done in the auto industry. Of course, it’s convenient that the general consumer would read that as meaning that the whole car is redesigned and not just a new body on the same old Fairmont. Refined is their hint that it is an existing platform.
I think they actually did do a good job of making the Fairmont look sleeker and nicer. Not a big fan of the badge engineering, though. Why not just call it a Fairmount still?
One thing this does illustrate is the packaging advantage of FWD. On the other hand, just for fun, let’s throw in another RWD ’80s Ford: the Ford Granada Scorpio, a.k.a. Merkur Scorpio:
1987 Scorpio
Wheelbase, in.: 108.7
Length, in.: 186.4 (Merkur; European Granada 183.8)
Legroom, front, in.: 42.1
Legroom, rear, in.: 41.7
Headroom, front, in.: 38.0
Headroom, rear, in.: 37.6
Shoulder room, front, in.: 56.4
Shoulder room, rear, in.: 56.4
Trunk volume (VDA), cu. ft.: 15.5 (rear seat up); 47.7 (seats down)
Passenger volume (SAE), cu. ft.: 95
(The numbers I’m seeing for the Merkur’s SAE trunk volume are 20.0 and 37.7 cu. ft., presumably seats up/down, but I’m not entirely confident about that since I don’t have an American Scorpio brochure. I don’t think the U.S. car’s interior volume was meaningfully different than the European’s — the length difference is in the bumpers — so I assume the difference comes down to rating methodology.)
The Scorpio never made it here, but it was fairly successful in Europe I think mostly because of the interior packaging. I had seen lots of contemporary reviews commenting on the very roomy rear seat, but looking at the specs is eye-opening. I’m really surprised that it has more rear legroom than the Fusion/Mondeo, which is a significantly bigger car with FWD.
Good point. That Scorpio had a remarkable back seat, especially considering its overall size and being RWD. Excellent packaging job.
Compared with Fox, an extra 3″ wheelbase here went a long way, but Dearborn loved overhang instead. They must’ve had that in their design bylaws or whatever.
This is great, Jason! One thing the earlier dimensions don’t include is hip/shoulder room, which I feel could make a big difference. It’s been decades since I’ve been in one of the old 80″ wide full size cars and I don’t remember it well, but I have noticed the width difference between the downsized ~72″ wide A/G bodies and the ~75″ wide B bodies. I have often wondered why automakers didn’t retain more of the width in the late 70s downsizings. Seems like they could’ve gained a significant amount of interior room with a relatively low weight penalty. But nobody did, so there must’ve been some reason for it? Full size trucks are still about 80″ wide, so I doubt it was legislative.
Another couple of impacts on how the space is used that I’ve noticed is seat design and steering column placement. Often one or the other or both will very much define where the driver is located laterally in the car. For instance, the seats in my 99 Sierra are deeply contoured and force me towards the middle of the truck, limiting the space for the middle passenger. If it had a flat bench, the outboard passengers could sit comfortably when closer to the door, making more room for all.
Hip room was not always available for the cars researched. I wanted to include it but didn’t want an incomplete picture.
I totally understand on it being difficult to find width figures, and I was confident that was the reason you didn’t include them. Finding any interior dimensions at all that are close to accurate has been challenging for me in the past. Often different sources contradict each other, much more often than is the case for exterior dimensions, so I commend your efforts in finding what you did!
Ate Up with Motor, I agree on width being a strong concern for international markets. Perhaps that is the reason why the automakers did it, though I don’t think they made a very strong/serious attempt at international sales, at least not in Japan. I wonder if it has as much or more to do with them being able to lightly modify existing midsize platforms with more efficient bodies to do the job, as adding width to these platforms would’ve been more expensive than adding length in terms of development money.
My impression is that you get more of a weight penalty adding width (assuming, of course, that you’re talking about adding width through the center of the car rather than in the form of flared wheel arches and such) than you might think, and a lot more than adding a comparable amount of length. Think about it: If you widen the car, you have to widen the roof, the floorpan, the front and rear clips, the grille, the hood, the decklid, and the dashboard. It also means more glass area in the windshield and backlight, and glass is not light. All that adds up, and so if you’re looking to downsize and thinking in terms of, “Where can I cut out a few inches that will make the most difference in weight savings?” that’s likely to be on the list right after excess overhang.
The other consideration is that there’s an increasing emphasis on making platforms that can be sold internationally, and in markets like Europe and Japan, a really wide car is a problem. (Japan of course also has tax classes based in part on width, but that’s partly for a reason!) Somebody recently — I think it was here, although I don’t remember — was saying something about how driving an old-school, full-size American car on British roads was not unlike driving an R.V. in the States. Similarly, someone I know in London took a couple of pictures of their residential street to illustrate how narrow it is; there were cars parked on both sides, which left about as much room as you’d find on a typical one-lane American road.
It is true, though, that a lot of modern cars are really not at all efficient in how they use what interior width they have. I had a miserable experience a while ago in the back seat of a rental Camry (I think it was a 2012), which had an overwrought, over-styled integral armrest/hand grip on each rear door that left me absolutely no comfortable place to put my arm — sliding my arm through it forced me to twist slightly toward the door, but not doing so forced me to twist further in the opposite direction and the placement of the seat belt and the shape of the cushion meant I couldn’t shift toward the center of the car even though there would have been room to do so. It was awful even for a short ride and a long trip back there would have been agony.
That could be, but another thing with width is gas mileage. You’ll notice even pickups today have narrower greenhouses than they used to even when the body is just as wide if not wider. I’ve noticed that on most new cars, how narrow the greenhouse is compared to the base. Probably a combination of factors.
Greater width does mean more frontal area, but I don’t know that that was a major consideration in the mid ’70s, when the first round of downsized cars came out. The idea of improving aerodynamics for better fuel economy was in its infancy as far as Detroit was concerned (the attitude there was that aero = ugly).
It’s certainly true that Detroit never made any serious attempt to even figure out what it would need to do to sell cars in Japan, but they were trying to compete with and eventually emulate cars that were made in the European or Japanese markets, which were designed with width considerations in mind.
I really don’t think the downsized cars (especially the GM B-bodies and the Ford Fox platform) were modified intermediates — some of the overall dimensions are similar, but the way they use space is quite different.
> I have often wondered why automakers didn’t retain more of the width in the late 70s downsizings. Seems like they could’ve gained a significant amount of interior room with a relatively low weight penalty. But nobody did, so there must’ve been some reason for it?
Think of the AMC Gremlin. The wide compact car… with the fuel economy of a midsize car.
That was the Pacer.
We are not measuring boxes. If we were, then we’d have something tangible. What you are discovering is that our sense of size is often subjective, not objective. Size to a human can relate to a car’s visual heft, styling and performance. Our perception that a particular car is roomy, is based on a subjective observation. No one really took out a brochure to determine that. No one pulled out a tape measure. What seemed large was based on our perception of usable size and expectations when encountering the car. Large windows can make a small car look larger on the inside, yet smaller on the outside. Thin frames give an illusion. If they are chromed, another. We don’t spend time in a car trunk. So, we interpret its usefulness based on our expectations of its use.
Perhaps what we are discovering is that model distinctions are not based on size. Model distinctions are based on our perception of its size. Just as we see models differing too little to warrant separate marketing identities, we may be seeing that claiming a subcompact is smaller than a compact within the same company is not determined by measurements.
That is true to some extent, as most new cars, including the Fusion, are rather claustrophobic due to their high beltline and intrusive pillars.
But what those dimensions don’t take into account are seat height and knee width space. My F-150 with no center console is far more spacious and comfortable than a Fusion, despite only having 41.3″ of front legroom compared to the Fusion’s 44.3″.
One other thing the specs don’t consider is footwell width. I got in a new Honda Odyssey and promptly took it off my shopping list due to the narrow footwells and a dead-pedal that was so far back it didn’t allow my left thigh to rest on the seat.
The other thing you see periodically, which is completely aggravating, is where the manufacturer shortens the seat cushion (particularly in back) to make it look like there’s more legroom than there really is. Then you sit in it and find that half of your thighs are hanging off into space.
Exactly. In addition, some sedans allow the rear wheelwell to intrude into the back seat, which tends to push window-seat passengers toward the middle & makes threesomes miserable.
One has to live with a car for awhile before one can be certain about long-term comfort. But many makers aim to make seats look good in the showroom instead, esp. during the Brougham era.
I wish there were reasonable aftermarket seat options like Recaro. Some folks have body proportions outside the Bell Curve.
Phil, you hit the nail on the head. These dimensions don’t really give a true picture. Most leg room measurements are from the seat back to the gas pedal. So this does not take into account the room to the toe board in the vehicle. As someone who is tall, I always max out the leg room on every car I drive. We have Ford Tauruses and F-150s in our work fleet. On paper the Taurus has far more leg room. I find the Taurus a horribly cramped with very little room for my left leg due to the narrow foot well, while an F-150 has TONS of leg room. I can easily fully extend my left leg to stretch it out in an F150. As someone who needs a lot of leg and head room, I have learned long ago not to trust brochure dimensions. You have to actually get into the car to get a true picture.
Long after I purchased my 2013 Ford Focus, I noticed that the passenger-side footwell is far shallower than the driver’s side footwell — by several inches. Since it’s a small car, it’s necessary to move the front passenger seat forward a bit to create acceptable foot & knee room for people to ride in the back. But when one does this, it leaves the passenger feeling cramped due to a paucity of leg room — even though this is not an issue on the driver’s side.
I’ve never looked to see what’s on the other side of the firewall that impinges on passenger legroom.
When the K cars and X bodies came out at the end of the ’70s, FWD cars had flat floors with only a vestigial hump running down the spine. Those days are long gone, and even FWD cars have large center humps, oversized consoles and cramped footwells. It’s my assumption that this is one of the prices we pay for improved rigidity and crashworthiness.
I think the large center humps in FWD cars have more to do with AWD being a common option on most of those platforms these days than added crashworthiness, which I don’t think that hump makes much difference. The vestigial hump on the classic FWD platforms was usually for the exhaust to tuck into
I don’t know about crashworthiness (which is a different matter), but a bigger tunnel does play a role in improving the rigidity of the body. You can pick up a lot of stiffness that way — as a case in point, consider that some old-school Lotus cars had most of their structural strength in basically an overbuilt transmission tunnel “backbone.”
Even in a monocoque structure, you can add a lot of strength by stiffening the floorpan (something Ford discovered sort of by accident with the 1958 Thunderbird), and you pretty much have to if you plan to remove the roof. A rigid tunnel is arguably a better way of achieving that than the fat sills you got on early British monocoques because while the Great Wall of Console may be annoying, you don’t usually have to climb over it to get in and out.
“Great Wall of Console.” That’s worth stealing.
Sometimes specs can be deceiving. Although the Fusion does have quite a bit of legroom, the seats are also very close to the floor making the seating position uncomfortable.
But yes, not a fan of the current Taurus. The Five Hundred made for a better family car.
Packaging is everything. In 2003 I went to replace my small sedan with a bigger vehicle for my growing family and was shocked to learn that a Ford Explorer was more roomy than a Ford Crown Victoria that I looked at as well. The Crown Vic was wider and longer, but more cramped in just about every way. The Explorer came home with me.
The Explorer at the time was a brand-new midsize platform, upsized from the compact platform you were probably used to seeing in every suburban driveway since 1991. The Crown Vic, meanwhile, was a 20-year-old design.
A lot of that is due to the seat and roof height of the Explorer being significantly taller than the CV, particularly in the back seat accommodations. In the front seat area though the Panthers feel much larger no doubt due in part to the much wider console in the Mountaineer. The headroom room up front in the Mountaineer is not as generous, but that is shaped by the fact that my Mountaineer has the sunroof and DVD player, which none of the Panthers that I have owned have had. Fact is when it is just me or one passenger and I’m not towing or needing to carry something that requires the back seat being folded down I’ll always choose one of my Panthers over the Mountaineer. The better MPG is also factored into that choice. Of course that is likely one of the reasons that the Explorer became not only Ford’s best selling passenger vehicle but the best selling passenger vehicle in the land for a number of years and what helped to fuel the SUV boom in general.
I agree with you about the CV front seat. They are very roomy, lots of leg room to stretch out my legs on a long trip. The back seats however aren’t overly generous IMO with the front seat set all the way back. Still, I agree with you, I’d take a CV over a Explorer any day of the week.
I’m still making comfort adjustments a year after replacing my Trooper with the Outback. The Trooper was the most comfortable car I’ve ever owned – tall, upright, almost park-bench seating with tremendous visual lines. It did handle like a Conestoga wagon of course…
I really like the Outback…I’m still getting used to my legs plays in front of me in traditional auto style…
The 3rd-gen Honda Fit/Jazz is almost Tardis-like in its packaging – it seems bigger on the inside than it is on the outside:
Headroom (in, front/rear): 38.0 / 37.6
Legroom (in, front/rear): 41.4 / 39.3
Shoulder Room (in, front/rear): 54.8 / 52.6
Hiproom (in, front/rear): 51.5 / 45.1
Cargo Volume (cu ft, seat up/down): 16.6 / 52.7
Passenger Volume (cu ft): 93.8
Seating Capacity: 5
Wheelbase (in): 99.6
Length (in): 160.0
Height (in): 60.0
Width (in): 67.0
Track (in, front/rear): 58.1 / 57.7
Curb weight (lb. m/t, CVT): 2573 / 2630
(dimensions shown are for the EX trim level)
By comparison, the 1990 Honda Civic three door hatch we had when Son Number One was born was very similar in exterior length and width, but was about 8″ shorter in height and 500lb. lighter.
Headroom (in. front/rear): 38.2, 36.6
Legroom (in. front/rear): 43.3, 30.4
Shoulder room (in. front/rear): 53.5, 53.2
I was unable to find cargo volume numbers for the ’90 Civic hatch, but I do remember it swallowing a lot of stuff as our two boys went from infants to about ten years old, when we completely outgrew the car and started our string of Chrysler platform minivans.
I’m guessing this is because Honda needs to impress buyers in Asia & Europe for whom this may be a primary family car able to do everything, as opposed to the US where minivans & SUVs more often fill this role since fuel is cheaper & compact size matters less (except for urbanites).
It is significant that the Civic Hybrid is the only way one can get a sedan version in the UK. Otherwise it’s the hatch, which is N/A stateside.
The Fit’s packaging secrets are the relocated fuel tank and the taller roof. The gas tank is under the front seats, which are raised a bit to make room. Those two factors mean there’s very little in the rear deck to take up space other than the rear axle (which is a twist beam and doesn’t intrude much) and the spare tire. Thus, the rear seats can be pushed back in the wheelbase for more legroom and when the seats are folded flat, you have essentially a panel van.
The xB, of course, IS a box on wheels, and a tall box at that. Hard to beat that for space utilization unless it’s really casually designed, which it obvious wasn’t.
The gen1 Scion xB has the Fit beat in almost every category, and it’s shorter by 5 inches. Its interior dimensions (except width and cargo) are comparable to a Tahoe.
Maximum Cargo Volume 43.4 cu.ft.
Exterior Length 155.3 ”
Exterior Width 66.5 ”
Exterior Height 64.6 ”
Wheelbase 98 ”
Front Tread 57 ”
Rear Tread 56 ”
Turning Radius 18.0 ‘
Curb Weight 2,425 lbs.
Front Legroom 45.3 ”
Rear Legroom 38.0 ” (that sounds too small to me)
Front Headroom 46.1 ”
Rear Headroom 45.7 ”
Front Hiproom 50.6 ”
Rear Hiproom 50.6 ”
Front Shoulder Room 48.6 ”
Rear Shoulder Room 50.0 ”
Passenger Volume 90 cu.ft.
Interior Cargo Volume 21.2 cu.ft.
Interior Cargo Volume w/Seats Folded 43.4 cu.ft.
Good point. Main advantage of the Fit I see is fuel economy; owners I’ve met claim they’ve beaten EPA & gotten over 40, whereas even the gen1 xB didn’t come close, perhaps due to its space-maximizing shape (let alone the Camryized one with the monster engine). What does yours get?
I think the baby van concept like this is excellent & hope carmakers continue it.
Well, mileage claims vary as widely as driving styles. I average 32 in mixed driving, with only short city hops it can drop down to 28-29.
Jim Cavanaugh has a Fit, and he seems to not get any more than I do in my xB. But YMMV, obviously.
From what I can tell, real-world mileage numbers for the 3rd-gen Fit are in the low-mid 40s for highway, mid-high 30s in the city (earlier gen Fits were more in line with the xB for mileage). I recently was doing some research on cars in this segment, and the xB definitely has the largest cargo area, although the Fit seats are more reconfigurable. I found the xB to have a lower level of tech, too. The Mazda 3 is nice and gets around 40 (EPA), but oh, the styling of that front grille! (as in, “what were they thinking?”)
Ed; The gen1 xB has many positive attributes, but some few negative ones too. It’s noisy at speed, like riding in a big cookie tin. And the ride is firm; great for back roads zigging; not so great on a long trip or rough roads. It’s not a good long-distance car.
I get about the same in my M/T 2nd gen Fit, maybe 34 in mixed driving. It’s on the highway where the Fit shines. I have gotten 42-43 in open highway driving at sea level. What does the xB do on the open road?
Nikita: the xB’s boxy aerodynamics limit its highway mileage. 34-36 is easy at about 65-70 or so. But any more speed starts to bring it down.
When I first got it, I did a bit of hypermiling and saw 36-38+ mpg. But nowadays I usually drive it pretty hard. 🙂
For urban driving, I found it helps MPG to shut the engine off, like hybrids do, at busy intersections with long waits (e.g. 1½ min). Of course this stresses the starter more, in the long run.
Almost all gasoline and diesel cars, manuals and automatics, come with a start/stop system these days. You can turn it off if you want. And it doesn’t work when the engine is (too) cold or when the A/C is turned on.
Maybe in Europe, but I don’t recall these being available to us benighted Americans, except on VWs to my knowledge. But since I haven’t shopped for awhile, I’m prepared to be corrected.
Neil, correct. Fiat already had it in 1980 on their Ritmo model. In the nineties Citroën re-introduced it. And IIRC many years ago it was also available on a VW Golf, I believe on a Golf II.
I assume by the “Camryized one with the monster engine” you are talking about the 2nd gen XB? let me tell you about that thing. I had a 2012 and the max MPG I could get with that stupid thing was 28mpg and that is if i drove nice. Which was only 2 more MPG then a 2005 LeSabre I also owned around that time. Plus the arrogance of Toyota dealers(I went to more then one) pretty much assured that my XB was my last Toyota product. I do bash some parts of GM but over all I do like GM(I own a Firebird and Lesabre right now) and I will give them several chances because for the most part the dealers are responsive. Toyota dealerships are taking on the VW arrogance and have a holier then thou attitude. my first Toyota is my last.
Yes. The EPA figures suggested as much to me. I think Mr. Niedermeyer ranted about that elsewhere on this site.
Dealers matter. One coworker told me he’d never buy a Mazda not because of the car, but because of the lousy dealer chain selling/maintaining them here. OTOH, we know a local Honda/Toyota/Nissan specialist garage who is so good, there is less need to fret about dealers for post-warranty service. They just expanded into a new building. Word of mouth, etc.
I have two coworkers with Mazda 3s, and both say the dealer experience is horrible.
The minimal MPG penalty of a Panther is why I keep driving them. We have a 2000 Taurus that I purchased when gas first hit $4/gal for the wife to drive instead of our SUV. It was passed down to me and now to my son. It only averaged about 1 MPG more than the 01 Grand Marquis which is why I got her the GM. Of course when things changed and she started averaging 30K mi/yr instead of 10K the GM was replaced with a Fusion Hybrid.
Excellent point – my xB is probably the roomiest car I’ve owned in my life (I tend to C class cars at the largest), despite being one of, if not the, shortest cars I’ve ever owned.
Nice analysis. I have just 2 observations.
1. The Taurus actually never was on hiatus at all. While most people think it was discontinued in 2005 when the Five Hundred arrived, the 4th generation soldiered on until 2007 as a fleet sales only(though if a non fleet customer wanted a 2006 or 2007 taurus Ford would happily sell them one) The last 4th generation Taurus made was a 2007 Taurus that was sold to the owner of the Chick-fil-a.
2. The reason for the lack of interior room in the 2008-2009 and 2010-present Taurus was because of that stupid picnic table sized center console. That was the only thing i hated on my 2008 Taurus.
My inital thought from the header was that this was going to ebthe theme of the piece.
A common happening – a Polo is bigger than Golf used to be, a Golf bigger than a Passat and so on.
Does this reflect people’s need for more space, as we get bigger and taller, as families grow and as affordibility increases, or does it allow the manufacturer to sell a “Golf” to a “Polo” customer
Some of both of the latter, I think. Trying to sell a repeat customer a smaller version of the car they bought last time is a challenge, whereas greater size is an easy way to rationalize price inflation.
I really don’t think people have gotten that much bigger than the ’60s, or at least I doubt that has much to do with automotive size trends. As we’ve talked about here before, though, what are notable influences, at least in the States, are seat belt laws and increasingly draconian child seat requirements. I’m sure a lot of readers here have memories of having been stuffed four at a time into the back of cars like the Mk1 Golf, but doing that now would get you a ticket in many places and god knows what they would do to you for driving around with your kid crouched sideways behind the front seats of a TR4. So, unless you’re determinedly single and childless, car-buying decisions end up being driven by the need to have clearly defined seats (and belts) for the appropriate number of humans plus room to install and get at your offspring’s armored travel pod.
Mission creep. People wanting a new car often wants the same car they already have, but a new one. They want the same, but at the same time, they want it bigger, faster, and better. That means there’s a continuous mission creep for every generation, and after a couple of generations, every car in the line-up has grown so much they could actually replace the ones higher up in the line-up. That’s why they had the polo in the first place, to tighten the gap between the beetle and the golf. The Polo has grown beyond the golf, and the Golf is bigger than the Passat. So, now they have the Up slotted in underneath the Polo, where they Polo used to be. And so it goes, on and on…
I dont want bigger and faster. Toyota (or Ford, GM, Ram) do not have a functional replacement for my 1st gen Tundra, which was at the time a perfect functional replacement for the ’94 F-150 we had.
Dont tell me the Tacoma, because it is too narrow to do the job.
My father managed to routinely cram three kids into the back/parcel shelf of a ’70 Opel GT, and I had many childhood rides in the bed of a friend’s family’s pickup truck.
Even at that time, we all knew kids in a pickup bed was a bad idea, but no one gave a second thought about the trips in the Opel.
Times do change.
European cars have been getting bigger. To take the Ford example, the Ford Mondeo the latest version which is now the same as the Fusion (here the Ford Fusion was something else entirely! http://carstovans.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Ford-Fusion-3.jpg) originally replaced the Sierra which in turn replaced the Cortina/Taurus.
1976 Cortina/Taurus L 170.9 W 66.9 WB 101.5
1982 Sierra L 178.4 W 68 WB 102.7
1993 Mondeo L 176.4 W 68.8 WB 106.5
2000 Mondeo L 186.3 W 71.3 WB 108.4
2006 Mondeo L 188.1 W 74.3 WB 112.2
Effectively this range has moved up a class in the Ford range. By comparison the ‘big’ late 1960s Ford above the Cortina was the Mk.IV Zephyr Zodiac:
1966 Zodiac L 185 W 71.25 WB 115
The only dimension bigger is the wheelbase (the Mk.IV always was odd in this respect, adding 8″ in WB over it’s predecessor, but only 2.25″ in length).
The same enlargement has happened with the Escort/Focus which is now bigger than the Cortina or Sierra was:
1968 Escort L 159.25 W 61.8 WB 94.5
2011 Focus L 178.5 W 71.8 WB 104.3
The extra width has made parking a lot harder as car parking spaces are not significantly bigger than they were 40 years ago. Interior room has not grown as much due to increased crash protection.
I did a spreadsheet a while back working out the sizes of succeeding generations of European Fords since 1960 (because I wanted to know and I’m a sad person). I worked on road area (length x width) and it appeared that a new base model had to be introduced ever 20 years or so as each model moved up in size and the top one was eventually taken off the market.
Logically, the Ford Ka will be the top of the European range in a few decades…
The Ford Cortina managed to stay the same length from 1962 until 1976 at 168″, though it grew in width from 62.5″ to 67″ and wheelbase from 98″ for the Mk.I & II to 101″ for the Mk.III. It was only once it became the same car as the German Taunus that it and its successors grew in length.
It is amazing that the Mark 1 and 3 Cortinas are the same length! Note once you get into the Sierra era aerodynamics and then crash protection mean that the front end gets progressively longer for no improvement in utility.
My impression is that the interior space in newer cars is significantly improved over older ones, but obviously not the same as the growth in external dimensions – perhaps 2/3? Eg the Escort had no console between the front seats, just the handbrake, whereas now you do have storage/armrest. Rear legroom in a C-segment car is also significantly increased over 20 years ago.
An interesting dimension to use is dashboard to rear seat. It is not 100% comparable because dashboard layouts vary, but they are usually in near enough the same ‘position’
I can attest to the extra trunk space in the modern Taurus. Mine is a 2011, and this past weekend we picked up my son from an overnight Scout camp. The trunk swallowed up his full sized BMX bike and all his gear with room to spare. No disassembly of the bike was required
We didn’t even need to put the seats down. I’ve never had a car that could do that until this one.
So there is an upside to having the trunks as tall as they are!
I wonder which car offers the most interior space in proportion to its overall length. This ?
Probably something more like this:
Well in that case, the sky is the limit.
That Dodge is exactly my Dad’s, same color, too!
Someone with time and access to the info should do this for “Best Selling Vehicles” (regardless of class) during given decades or something like that.
I’m wondering if as the SUV boom took off that the interior room was similar to the full size sedan beasts of yore.
The 1971 Mustang was not well received when new. It just seemed obese, especially compared with the original ’65. Ironically, the all-new 2015 Mustang seems to recall the 71 far more than the 65. It is the biggest and heaviest Mustang ever — weighs more than a 1972 Gran Torino.
A little while ago I looked into this for a particular model, and got a very strong sense of “everything old is new again”. Take, for example, the Chevy Malibu. It started out (as the Chevelle) as a sensibly mid-sized car, then grew, grew again, until the colonnade model was outlandishly big. So it was heavily downsized for ’78, and produced the ’79 I own. Solidly mid-size at the time, but most people would look at it today and think “big old car”. The family resemblance to the much larger B-body Caprice adds to the illusion. Fast foward to today, and in between the car was discontinued, reintroduced as an N-body variant, and then has occupied the mid-size slot ever since, growing slightly with each revision.
Here’s the funny part–the 2015 Malibu is *almost EXACTLY the same size* as the 1979.
1979 Chevrolet Malibu:
193″ length, 108″ wheelbase, 71″ width, 54″ height, 102.3 cubic ft. interior, 16.6 cubic ft. trunk.
3100-3400 lbs. depending on options.
2015 Chevrolet Malibu:
192″ length, 108″ wheelbase, 73″ width, 58″ height, 100.3 cubic ft. interor, 16.3 cubic ft. trunk.
3400-3700 lbs. depending on options.
So based on that comparison…mid-size in 1979 and mid-size in 2015 mean almost exactly the same thing. The measurements of that Fusion support my hypothesis–longer wheelbase but very similar to the Malibus otherwise.
Like I said, everything old is new again.
The beauty of numbers is one can make them speak in so many ways. What you have mentioned is one of the approaches I thought about taking.
I need to do this for a number of other makes!
Lies, damned lies and statistics!
Inches, what the hell are those?
Centimeters on steroids!
Measurements for ‘Merica!
The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!
An inch is the width of a grown man’s thumb. Hence “a thumb”. Apparently that’s 2.54 cm.
We still call this a “duimstok”. If you translate that literally you get something like “thumb rod”.
Looks like a meter stick to me. Most front seat leg room is a bit more than this (by 5 or 6 cm).
It is, 100 cm. But the name is still thumb stick. (I see that stick is a better translation than rod)
I googled both “thumb rod” and “thumb stick” but got mostly nonsense. Then I google “duimstok” and the translation gave me folding ruler, which is what your image shows. Also gauge is an alternative, which is what a ruler is or does (noun or verb).
KiwiBryce seems to be ignoring this. Australia converted to SI units (internation System of units). A meter is currently defined as 1/299,792,458 of the distance that light travels in 1 second in a vacuum.
Here’s the fun part. A traditional carpenter’s duimstok (folding ruler) is exactly 100 cm long unfolded. Completely folded it’s exactly a duim / thumb / inch wide and a 1/2 inch tall. So each of the 4 parts is 1/2 inch wide and 1/4 inch tall.
Often these are all “standard” measurements in older buildings.
As an aside, I can’t believe we’re actually discussing folding rulers here….
Even by today’s standards, I don’t think you can get too much more claustrophobic than the back seat of a 72 Vega when you’re a teenage boy.
Hatchback, maybe. I found the back seat in my notchback plenty roomy when I was in high school… (c:
Proportions can make a huge difference in the apparent size of a vehicle. My 96 Cherokee looked far bigger than it was, probably due to the horizontal aspect ratio of the rear windows. At a casual glance you’d think it was just a bit smaller than a contemporary Explorer, but it’s actually a full foot shorter. (All in overhang by the way – wheelbase is almost the same). The opposite can also be true – my wife’s ’10 CRV doesn’t look that big, until you park it next to my Outback.
Buick (large as in Electra) specs
year – width – wheelbase – length – F leg R leg F shoulder R
1965 – -80 — 126——- 224 —-42.2 — 40 — 62 — 61
1971 – 79.7 – 127 —— 226 —- 42.6 — 39.3 – 64 — 61
1977 – 77.2 – 119 —— 222 —- 42.2 — 41 —59 — 60
1987 – 72.1 – 111 —— 197 —- 42.4 — 41.5 – 59 —-59
1993 – 73.6 – 111 —— 205 —- 42.0 — 41.6 – 58.7 – 58.5
2003 – 74.7 – 114 —— 207 —- 42.4 — 41.4 – 59.2 – 58.7
2011 – 73.8 – 116 —— 203 —- 42.5 — 41 — 58 — 57
For metric equivalent mult by 25.4 to convert inches to mm
Staying with Ford, I wouldn’t mind seeing the late 1990s Contour/Mystique dimensions compared with the Gen3 Taurus (the “oval” car). I heard somewhere that part of FoMoCo’s problem with the former is that production cost was darned close to the Taurus’s, while there’s no way they could price it as high as the Taurus.
p.s. Thanks for confirming my inklings about current Fusion/Taurus, size-wise.
Contour/Mystique were known as the Mondeo in Europe; radically smaller outside and very cramped inside compared to the “oval” Taurus, especially thanks to the intrusive center console (on the Taurus, the center console wasn’t permanently mounted, it folded into the front bench seat – a clever idea, although rather poorly executed – never seen anything like that on any other car).
The 1994-1999 Mondeo was roughly comparable to Ford Sierra / Merkur XR4Ti in the respect of interior room, with some additional inches of rear legroom thanks to the shift towards FWD. Reasonably comfortable seating position for the driver, with legs stretched out, but little more. Very awkward seating position for backseat passengers, too – the designers did that dirty little trick of lowering the backseat cushion to get nice rear legroom numbers – at the cost of your knees being on the level of your shoulders. The Taurus, on the other hand, I remember as a genuinely roomy car without such compromises, comparable or even superior to the newer ‘2000 Mondeo (which was way larger than its predecessors and almost as large as the Taurus).
Your comparison of production costs is correct, and that’s a good illustration of how that “let’s build that great European car in the US!” idea ends up all too often: as the result, you’re getting a small, but uncompetitively expensive car more often than not (e.g., that’s why European Gen2 Focus never came to the US). In Europe, the Mondeo was an instant hit. In the US – little more than a flop.
By “Oval” Taurus I assume you mean the 96-99? The fold away center console was indeed unique and this actually carried over to the 2000-2007 Taurus also. In both generation Taurus, this was actually only offered in the column shifter model Taurus and sable. The optional floor mounted shifter came with a big intrusive center console.
Now there was a smaller consolette offered on column shifter tauruses from 1998-2001 that was an option. It was rare and seems to have been only offered in fleet or FFV(flexi fuel) vehicles. I snagged one at a local pik it pull it junk yard for my now former 2006 taurus(it bolts right into the brackets that the seat/console bolts in to( yes the column shifter Tauruses actually had front bucket seats and not a 60/40 split. The console/seat was its own seat)
Here was mine
This discussion wouldn’t be complete without me reposting this data:
2013 Beetle
168.4″ long
71.2″ wide
58.5″ tall
2000 New Beetle
161.1″ long
67.9″ wide
59.5″ tall
1978 Super Beetle
160.5″ long
62.5″ wide
59.75″ tall
1963 Type I Sedan
160″ long
60.6″ wide
59″ tall
How does the New New Beetle, aka the Beetle, stack up to those measurements?
That’s the 2013 Beetle, listed at the top.
There have only been a couple mentions of the impact of CAFE standards.
The easiest way to make a car lighter and cheaper is to make it narrow, like a 50s Studebaker or Hudson Jet.
Length added to front and rear overhang is cheaper and lighter than length added within the wheelbase. In the 50s, a length stretch would often end up in back seat room. In the 70s, a length stretch would be in front overhang.
The original CAFE standards produced downsized cars. Easiest way to make a car more fuel efficient is to reduce the amount of material to be hauled around.
The reformed CAFE standard that started to phase in a few years ago, changes the rules. Now, each model is assigned a fuel economy target based on it’s footprint (product of wheelbase and track). The rule openly stated that this approach was taken to discourage downsizing as a reduction in wheelbase or track would increase the mileage target. So now the trend is to make cars larger, but lighter, with high strength steel and aluminum. Over time I expect we will see reduction in overhang as increasing wheelbase and track, without increasing overall length or width, will lower the fuel consumption target.
Bottom line, the car of the future will look like a Fiat 500, or my dear departed Renault R5
There’s the genesis of a CC article right there – looking at how regulations have impacted drivetrains (taxation based on displacement, for example) and styling over the years.